Книга - The Wrong Wife

The Wrong Wife
Carolyn McSparren


Old money. Old scandels. A new chance at love…Annabelle Langley is all wrong for Ben Jackson. Ben's an ambitious district attorney with plans to move up in the political arena. Annabelle's messy past–or at least the past she believes is hers–will not be helpful to him.But Ben loves Annabelle–it's the first time he's felt this way since his fiancée's death many years ago. And he's determined to prove Annabelle's innocence, even though he knows opening this old case will almost certainly destroy his career. But when it seems that the deeper he delves into her secrets, the more damning the evidence against her appears, Ben has second thoughts.Should he stop? Let her go? Or keep fighting for the happiness they both want?









He dared not see Annabelle Langley again


That was for sure, Ben Jackson thought to himself. Cupid must be laughing his head off, the sadistic little bastard. How could Ben, the conservative, left-brain, goal-oriented young law-and-order district attorney fall head over heels in love at first sight?

He was still thinking of her when the back door burst open, and Annabelle, her face as cheerful as an executioner’s, stalked down the back steps and stood staring out at the yard and carriage house.

The effect she had on him hadn’t changed.

He leaned back against the trunk of the tree and tried to study her critically in hopes that his rational mind would kick in before it was too late. This could not be happening. His mother must have slipped a love potion into his tea. She’d accused him of being a robot. But robots didn’t fall in love.

This wasn’t love. It was lust. Lust he could handle.…After all, a district attorney with a brilliant career ahead of him wouldn’t fall for a woman like Annabelle.

A woman with a scandal in her past from which she’d never escape.


Dear Reader,

Do you believe in love at first sight? I do. I knew the first moment I looked at my husband that he was the one.

Ben Jackson, law-and-order district attorney on the rise, doesn’t believe in love at all. He’s looking for the right wife—a partner to share his vision, to help build his career.

But he falls passionately for Annabelle Langley the moment he sees her, even though she couldn’t be a less suitable choice.

Fortunately, Annabelle would never dream of marrying Ben Jackson. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t intend to marry at all. She wants to go back to New York where nobody cares about her past.

Ben wants to uncover the truth so she’ll be free to love him. Yet the deeper he delves, the more damning the evidence against her seems. He’s not helping her—he’s hurting her!

Should he stop? Let her go? Or keep fighting for the love he knows they can have together?

I hope you’ll enjoy discovering the answer.

Carolyn McSparren


The Wrong Wife

Carolyn McSparren






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For Vonda Milnor, who taught me about heirloom lace.

For Pat Potter, Phyllis Appleby and Beverly Williams, the greatest brainstormers in the world.

For Emma DeSaussure Jett, who taught me to sew a fine seam—or as fine as I could manage.

Finally, in memory of Ann Lee, who brought this plot a good deal too close to home.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE (#u6f55292a-8b28-542d-bf8e-d3f9f10ffc46)

CHAPTER TWO (#uccd98c05-b2c4-513e-9180-6eee734265f4)

CHAPTER THREE (#u1a0ccac6-a1a8-53b1-93fd-ef4e02c0339c)

CHAPTER FOUR (#ude83f02c-1a7d-5ac3-8493-72b205dfbd3c)

CHAPTER FIVE (#u3263a2af-d4f4-5d8e-b689-ad609a93ad6b)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE


“YOU’VE SUCCESSFULLY avoided falling in love for years,” Elizabeth Jackson said to her son. “That’s not a good thing.”

“For me, it is.” Ben Jackson leaned back on the turquoise corduroy Victorian love seat and smiled sardonically at his mother. “Even Cupid couldn’t shoot an arrow through all the scar tissue on this particular heart.” Ben poked a finger at his chest. “I’ve had one love, remember. I neither need nor want another. Too painful.”

“Ben, you loved Judy, but that was in high school. And her death wasn’t your fault.”

“It was partly my fault. Although some of the blame must go to dear old Dad.”

Elizabeth frowned at her son. “Stop being so sarcastic. All I’m saying is that it’s better to feel pain than nothing at all.”

“You taught me not to stick my hand on a hot stove, but you want me to hold out my heart and say, ‘Hey, somebody come and stomp on this’?”

Elizabeth laid the piece of ecru lace she’d been working with onto the coffee table and gave her son a critical glance. “I’d rather have you bleeding all over my carpet than turning into a robot.”

“Whoa! I’m no robot.” He leaned forward. “I care a hell of a lot about putting the crooks away.”

“That is what you do. Is it not who you are. Or it shouldn’t be.”

“If Dad hadn’t gotten Elmer Bazemore acquitted of rape and attempted murder he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to kill Judy, and you’d probably have those grandchildren you keep talking about.”

She leaned across to put her arms around him for a moment. He held himself stiffly away from her. She released him. “Get an emotional life.”

“I’m trying, Mom. Within limits.”

“Not much chance with the women you date.” Elizabeth picked up the lace, adjusted her pince-nez and began to check it for tiny rips. “Everything between you and your girlfriends is so cool and rational. What kind of a marriage would that make?”

“The perfect kind. A partnership that will get me elected to my first full term as district attorney.”

“With two point five perfect children to round out the picture?”

“I’m not certain I’ll ever have children. I wouldn’t want to be an absentee father.”

“Your father wasn’t exactly an absentee.”

“He never attended a PTA meeting or soccer game. He never saw me pitch or Steve catch. He got home in time for maybe two family dinners a month if we were lucky, plus Thanksgiving and Christmas, unless one of his clients popped Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and had to be bailed out Christmas morning.”

“His clients needed him.”

“So did we. Then he bailed out on us. On you.”

“I’ve long since forgiven him for that. In fact, he did me a favor. If he hadn’t left, I’d never have started Elizabeth Lace and become a successful business woman.”

Ben slid off the sofa, shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his chinos and strode over to stare out the front window of the big parlor. He knew his mother worried about him, but the still-attractive, slim woman with soft brown hair was busy with her own business, her friends, her suitor—who just happened to be Ben’s boss. She was there when Ben needed her, but she seldom intruded as she was doing today.

He watched for Brittany’s car. She was invariably early. In his mother’s big front yard a dozen different hues of azalea rioted around the aged oak trees while the early April breeze tousled the shaggy heads of Dutch iris.

Ben only felt truly at home in this house where he had spent his childhood. The Garden District, with its aging Georgian houses, was his favorite place in Memphis, particularly now, before summer heat drove everyone inside to air conditioning.

“Sorry, Mom,” he said. “I can’t forgive Dad for turning the law into a parlor game he played without regard for right or wrong.”

“And for Judy’s death.”

“How many other people died because of Dad and his courtroom antics?”

“He always said if the prosecution did its job properly, they won. His job was to defend his clients as best he could.”

Ben leaned back. “Too bad he was so good at it.”

“He did get off some people who might have been wrongly convicted, ever think of that?”

“If he did, it was sheer dumb luck that they were innocent. He didn’t care about that either. Just the way he didn’t care about us.”

Elizabeth laid the fragile piece of lace gently on the coffee table again and smoothed it as though it were skin. “We had some wonderful times, Ben. In the early years when we were struggling, your father and I had passion even when we fought. You aren’t passionate about anything except getting the felons off the streets.”

“I see nothing wrong with that. Besides, I do have passion.”

“I’m not only talking about making love.” Elizabeth looked him square in the eye. “I’m talking about fighting and demanding and making wild love and driving one another nuts. Your ice princesses don’t incite that kind of passion, do they?”

“God, I hope not!” Ben laughed. “If my ice princess and I both know the score going in, we’ll never drive each other crazy.”

“Boring!”

“I know it’s not the life you want for me, Mother, but it’s all I’m capable of. Something broke inside me when Judy was killed. So now I intend to marry a woman who fits into my life-style, has the same goals, the same ambitions, the same views of life. Someone who doesn’t need the part of me that isn’t there any longer. In short, a partner and a friend.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “Job description—one suitable wife. Must be tall, thin, blond, rich, socially adept and completely self-sufficient. Applicants must apply in person.”

“If you like.”

“I don’t like, darling, but it’s your life.” She waved an elegantly manicured hand toward the front door at the end of the marble entry hall. “Are you making a job offer to the one I’m about to meet?”

“Maybe. She fits your description. Plus Brittany is Phi Beta Kappa, has a career she enjoys and is very good at, and would make an excellent public servant’s wife.”

“She sounds like a gorgon.”

“She’s a wonderful girl.”

“So why haven’t I met her before now?”

“Because I didn’t want to put pressure on either one of you. That’s why she’s coming over this afternoon. She really does need a dress for the Steamboat Ball, and she loves your antique lace.”

“Does she know how much one of my dresses costs? Particularly one designed to look like an 1880 riverboat costume. And I assume she wants it to look modern enough for her to wear after the costume ball.”

“Money’s no problem. Although I did hope you’d cut her a deal because your poor starving son is only a lowly assistant district attorney.”

“Of course Mommy will be nice to the gorgon, darling. After all, I don’t have to live with her. Nor with you, thank God.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’d hit you over the head with an ice hammer to try to break through to the fallible human being.”

“I will probably be the next D.A. when Phil’s judgeship comes through next month. I have to be above reproach if I’m going to win the election on my own at the end of this term.”

“So your wife must be above reproach too. Have you sicced a private detective on her to see whether there are any skeletons in her closet?”

“Of course not.”

The bell on the front door bonged. Elizabeth stood and smoothed both her skirt and her face and pasted on her professional smile. As Ben followed her to the door, she said quietly, “You’re tempting fate, darling. One of these days, love is going to jump up and bite you. You can’t hide away forever.” She opened the door. “Brittany, how nice to meet you,” She held out her hand. “I’m Elizabeth Jackson. Ben has told me so much about you.”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Ben wandered around the big living room that his mother had converted to a showroom for her antique lace dresses. His mother and Brittany sat side by side on the love seat. All he could see was the backs of their heads. They twittered and turned the pages of Elizabeth’s display books, while she made quick sketches on the artist’s pad in her lap.

He knew both women were making an effort to like one another because of him.

But nothing could alleviate the boredom of listening to the endless snatches of clothes conversation. He drove his hands deeper into the pockets of his chinos and sighed deeply.

“That’s enough,” Elizabeth said, looking up. “Go away, Ben. You’re driving us both nuts.”

Brittany flashed him a radiant smile. “Sweetie, I know this is boring for you. Why don’t you go to the club and have a drink. I’ll call you from the car when I leave.”

“Better yet,” Elizabeth said, “go talk to Marian in the workroom.” She flicked a hand toward the back of the house. “Everybody else has already gone home, but she hasn’t seen you in months, and I’ve got a new chef d’atelier straight from an upscale Seventh Avenue house in New York. At the moment, she’s helping with everything from ordering materials to sewing, but if I could keep her, I’d turn her into a designer. She’s very good. Introduce yourself if she’s there. Think of it as practice for vote gathering.”

“Well…”

“Go. Shoo.”

He’d spent many afternoons after school studying upstairs in the workroom, when his mother was just starting to turn a profit with her antique-lace creations and before his life shut down.

Marian Wadsworth was more like an aunt than his mother’s employee. She’d even tried unsuccessfully to teach him the fundamentals of sewing. His hands were too big and too clumsy. But she’d been endlessly patient.

And he had been remiss not to keep in closer touch.

He took the back stairs two at a time. The rubber matting deadened his footsteps. He would surprise her.

He tiptoed across the landing to the baize-covered door to the attics, long since converted to work space for his mother’s designs. He took a deep breath, grasped the knob, turned it silently, flung open the door, spread his arms and shouted, “Maid Marian, it’s Robin Hood returned from the Crusades. Come and kiss me!”

“Are you nuts?”

Ben only had time to glimpse an infuriated female face before the woman dropped to the floor.

“Damn and blast! You’ve made me spill the paillettes!”

At that point, all he could see was a well-rounded upturned bottom in black leggings.

“Don’t just stand there, get down here and help me dig these things out of the cracks in the floor.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Ben stammered. “I thought Marian was here.”

“Well, she’s not. I am. She’s gone to get some more blue paillettes.” The woman at his feet was picking up small flat disks of what looked like blue glass. “Ah, gotcha!” she said, and held up one of the shards. “Are you going to help or not?”

Ben dropped onto his haunches. A completely unruly mass of chocolate curls fell over the woman’s face. Her fingers were workmanlike with short, unvarnished nails. He slid one of the fragments of blue from a crack and handed it to her. “Here.”

“Lovely. That only leaves about fifty more. We’ll never find them all.”

She sat back on her heels, pushed her hair off her face and turned to frown at him. She peered over horn-rim half glasses and said, “Ben. Of course it would be you.”

Her eyes were the color of dark Barbados rum.

He sucked in his breath and felt suddenly as though he were Butch Cassidy in the last scene of the movie. Everything had turned golden. The world tilted into slow motion.

“Close your mouth, Ben Jackson. You look like a dead carp.”

He tried to snap his mouth shut, but only succeeded in gulping. “Uh…wha…who?”

“You don’t even recognize me. Par for the course.”

He wanted to say, “You look edible, luscious, wild and sexy and dangerous and crazy and I want you.”

“Uh, familiar” is what he said. He controlled his libido—it didn’t control him. Or never had, until now. Then the penny dropped. “Annabelle? Annabelle Langley?”

He heard the door open behind him. “Ben! Belle! Why are you two crawling around on the floor?”

He tore his eyes away, and reached a hand back to Marian as though she were offering him a lifeline.

“Get up, Ben, you’ll get filthy,” Marian Wadsworth said.

He stood easily and realized he was smiling stupidly at the woman on the floor.

“You going to leave me down here?” The woman held out her hand.

Ben took it automatically and felt the same jolt he’d experienced once when he’d plugged his electric razor into a bad socket. The hair on his arms stood up.

She pulled against him, and a moment later came up against his chest.

The hair on his arms wasn’t the only thing that came to attention.

“Sorry, Marian,” Annabelle said, and stepped back. She kept looking at him warily. Why not? He must look as fatuous as Bottom after he turned into a jackass in Midsummer Night’s Dream. How appropriate.

“Ben surprised me. I dropped the paillettes. You think we’ll have enough if I don’t find them all?”

Marian held out a small cardboard box, perhaps five inches by seven. “Plenty. You have to stop squirreling things away in your apartment, Belle. Or at least develop a decent filing system.”

“Sorry. Next time, I’ll go do the hunting.” She glanced at Ben. “It’s safer.” She picked up a fragile length of white Belgian lace off the worktable, and took a three-inch glass-headed dressmaker’s pin from a large pincushion on her wrist.

“I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you at first.” Ben said. “You were in my brother, Steve’s grade. Right?”

“It’s been a long time. High school.” Annabelle stuck out her hand. “I was a lowly freshman when you were a senior, but everybody knew the president of the senior class. I’m your mother’s new chef d’atelier.”

Ben closed his eyes and whispered, “I am going to kill my mother.”

“Ben!” Marian said.

“Oh, God.” Ben opened his eyes. “I didn’t mean—I’d never…”

“Get out now, please,” Annabelle said. “Before I toss you out.”

“It’s just an expression.”

“Now!” She crunched up the lace in her hand. “Ow!” She held up her hand. The pin had embedded itself in her left index finger. She yanked out the object and raised her finger to her lips to suck the drop of blood, but didn’t manage to catch it before it fell on the lace she held in her other hand. “Now look what you’ve made me do.”

“Ben,” Marian said quietly. “Go downstairs. I’ll handle this.”

“But…”

“She knows you didn’t mean anything by your remark. Go.”

Confused, embarrassed, and feeling like the biggest klutz in this or any other universe, Ben went. He took the stairs fast and turned not toward the living room, where he could still hear Brittany’s voice, but toward the kitchen, and then out the back door into the yard.

Without a conscious thought he grabbed the branch of the oak tree, planted his foot in the crotch and swung up and into the leaves. His hands and feet remembered as though he were still a boy of ten who hid out in his tree whenever he wanted to avoid chores or wanted to read a book. Then when he was 18—the summer after Judy died—he’d practically lived up here for a couple of months.

He covered his face with his hands and braced his back against the big limb twenty feet up. Thank God the tree had grown enough to support his weight. He hadn’t given that a thought.

He did not dare see Annabelle Langley again, that was for sure.

How could he go back in and charm Brittany when, as of ten minutes earlier, she had ceased to be an important part of his world? It wasn’t her fault. It was his mother’s.

Cupid must be laughing his head off, the sadistic little bastard. How could Ben Jackson, the rational, left-brain, goal-oriented young law-and-order assistant district attorney on the rise, fall head over heels in love at first sight? And with a woman who had killed her mother?

BEN WAS STILL PROPPED along the branch of the tree fifteen minutes later when the back door burst open and Annabelle Langley, her face as cheerful as an executioner’s, stalked down the back steps and stood staring out at the backyard.

The effect she had on him hadn’t changed.

He tried to look at her critically, compare her to Brittany in hopes that his rational mind would kick in before it was too late. Hadn’t his mother accused him of being a robot? Robots didn’t fall in love.

Yet something in Annabelle ripped through his defenses.

He did not like it, didn’t want it, didn’t approve of it. Passion hurt, feeling hurt. Love meant loss. Hideous, horrible loss that came with pictures that exploded inside his brain without warning, even now.

He couldn’t afford empathy. He could not be open to emotion and do his job properly. He owed his entire focus to the people he was sworn to protect. One less criminal on the street meant one less victim—one less Judy.

Annabelle couldn’t see him, didn’t know he was there. He might have said something the instant she came out that door, but the opportunity had already passed.

So he studied her dispassionately. What was the big deal?

She was at least three inches shorter than Brittany. Brittany was model slim. Annabelle had curves; she wouldn’t fit into chic clothes nearly as well, assuming she ever wore anything more chic than the leggings and baggy shirt she had on at the moment. He didn’t care. Naked she’d be gorgeous, and naked was how he wanted her.

Brittany’s straight, blond hair fell with flawless precision around her face.

Annabelle’s hair looked as though it had escaped from an unclipped standard poodle, taken root on her head, and kept growing until it reached her shoulder blades. He longed to run his fingers into it and feel it curl, bury his face in all that extravagance.

This wasn’t love. It was lust. Lust he could handle.

Annabelle didn’t seem to care much about her looks. At the moment she’d eaten off her lipstick, her nose was shiny, and she had a smudge of blue pattern pencil along her jaw. But then, she’d been working all day. Hard, physical labor. Ben remembered that much. Sewing might look easy, but it knotted the shoulders and wounded the hands. As he had wounded her hand—and more. God, how could he have been so stupid and clumsy! His remark must have cut her deeply.

Now, Brittany was something else. She was in public relations. She never met a stranger. She smiled easily. She could schmooze anyone.

So how come Brittany suddenly seemed to him as unformed as a lump of Play-Doh? How come her blond good looks now seemed as bland as cornstarch? And this wild woman made him want to leap on her out of his tree and drag her off to his lair to be his mate for life?

He groaned, threw up his hand to hit himself in the forehead, and overbalanced.

“Hey!” he yelped as his feet lost their purchase. He grabbed for the limb over his head just as the one he sat on gave way under his weight.

He fell. He grabbed at a couple of branches to slow his progress, wrenched his shoulder, and managed to catch himself eight feet from the ground, where he hung for a moment before he dropped ingloriously onto the grass.

Annabelle stared at him openmouthed.

“I can explain.” He stood up and held his hands in front of him, palms up.

She took a deep breath. “Are you all right? You look a mess.”

“I’m fine.”

“What on earth were you doing in that tree?”

She took a few steps toward him, and reached out to brush the lapel of his jacket.

“I can explain,” he said again.

It took all his willpower not to grab her wrist and drag her into his arms. The touch of her fingertips raised the hair at the nape of his neck, and several other portions of his anatomy that hadn’t been this out of control since he’d turned thirteen.

“So?” she said with her eyes on the shoulder of his jacket where she brushed off leaves and twigs.

“So what?” He stared down at her. That blue smudge was adorable.

“You said you could explain.”

“Oh.”

He closed his eyes as she continued her progress around his body, brushing him off lightly. She grabbed the shoulders of his jacket and wrenched it back into place, then walked around in front of him again with her eyes just above his belt buckle.

“You can take care of the rest of you.”

Thank God. If she’d tried to brush off his chinos, she’d have been in for one hell of a surprise.

“And your hair. You’re wearing a crown of leaves like Pan.”

He swept his hair back from his forehead and brushed down the front of his trousers.

“Well? I’m waiting.” She stepped away from him with her hands on his hips. Now, finally, she looked into his eyes.

“I, uh. Look, come sit in the gazebo a minute.”

She shook her head. “I’ve still got an hour’s work to do cleaning up the mess upstairs.”

“You came outside.”

“To keep from screaming in frustration, actually. And then you fall out of the skies practically on top of me.”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his chinos. “Okay. I made such a jackass of myself in there, I came out here and climbed into the tree to calm down and think up some way to apologize. Then, when you came out, I lost my balance.”

“You could have announced your presence.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“Spies do not thrill me.”

“I was not spying on you, Annabelle,” he lied. “I was thinking that I am not usually a social nitwit. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” She turned to go back into the house.

Suddenly the day seemed dark. “Wait!” He reached for her forearm. “How about dinner?”

“What?”

“Dinner. Me, you, tonight.”

“Now I know you’re crazy.” She pointed toward the house. “I think you already have a date, Mr. District Attorney. And I suspect she’s wondering where the heck you’ve gotten to.”

He let her go, and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. This could not be happening. Not to Ben Jackson. His mother had slipped a love potion into his tea while they were waiting for Brittany.

He had a brain tumor, or an aneurysm that had burst suddenly. There had to be some rational explanation.

He closed his eyes. Whatever had occurred, he had to fix it, exorcise it, reverse the spell, before it devoured him, his career plans, his goals and the rest of his life in a hapless, fruitless pursuit of a woman who not only was unsuitable in every respect, but who obviously didn’t even like him.

“WHAT HAVE YOU been up to?” Elizabeth Langley said to her son. “You’re a mess.”

“I—uh—I tripped on the patio. The bricks were slick.”

“Really.” His mother accepted the explanation readily enough, or so it seemed to Ben. “Brittany and I have designed her dress for the ball. Period enough to work for the Steamboat’s 1880 theme, but modern enough to wear to the symphony or one of the secret-society parties during carnival.”

“Can I see the design?”

Brittany laughed. The sound, which had enchanted him only hours before, now sounded as raucous as a crow’s. “No, you cannot, you naughty thing. It’s bad luck!” She stretched back on the couch as his mother picked up her sketch pad and notebooks and went to put them back into the armoire in the corner.

“Actually, that only applies to wedding dresses,” his mother said.

Brittany giggled. Ben decided he must have been drugged to be able to change his opinion about a woman this beautiful so quickly and so totally.

He blinked, opened his eyes and hoped against hope that the Brittany he had liked would be back.

No such luck. He could still appreciate her beauty, but she no longer moved him any more than if she’d been carved out of marble.

“Now, children, off to dinner you go,” Elizabeth said. “I have my own plans.”

Ben tried desperately to think of some way to get out of his date, but he’d been raised better than that, and Brittany hadn’t done one thing wrong. The responsibility was his alone, his and his witch mother, who had set him up and cast a spell on him.

Maybe it was like the twenty-four-hour flu. He’d wake up tomorrow morning cured of Annabelle Langley.

He heard the two women making leaving sounds without registering the words. He followed them to the door, and held it while they air kissed.

“Coming, sweetie?” Brittany said.

“I’ll send him along in a minute,” Elizabeth said. “You did come in two cars, didn’t you?”

For a moment Brittany’s good nature slipped, but the flash of annoyance that crossed her face came and went so swiftly that Ben wasn’t certain he’d seen it.

“Of course. See you at the club,” she said, and ran her hand down his cheek. He stood on the step beside his mother and watched Brittany glide to her car and drive away with a wave.

“She is a lovely woman,” Elizabeth said.

“Uh-huh.”

“And very, very clever.”

That didn’t sound like a compliment.

“She will look extraordinary in the dress we designed. Daddy, I take it, has money?”

“Pots of it, according to the grapevine.”

“Do I need to start designing her wedding dress?”

“Uh—I’d hold off on that.”

“Ah.” His mother narrowed her eyes at him. “You can’t have cooled off so quickly.”

He ignored her remark. “If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to miss our reservations at the club.” He kissed his mother perfunctorily and started down the concrete stairs to the front yard.

“Are you going to bring her to my regular Thursday-night dinner party?” Elizabeth called after him.

Damn! His mother’s legendary Thursday nights. “I don’t know. I’ll call you.”

“Fine. It doesn’t have to be Brittany, you know. Any girl will do so long as she’s not an airhead.”

“Right.” He climbed into his car and drove away much too fast for the narrow street. He scared a small woman who was walking a large bull mastiff. He knew he should have stopped to apologize. She was probably one of his mother’s neighbors, although he didn’t recognize her. She would be one of his constituents, if he ever became district attorney. He needed to remember he was a lawyer first, a man second.

The hell he was.




CHAPTER TWO


ANNABELLE SHUT THE DOOR to the backyard and leaned against it with both hands behind her back. There was no point in throwing the bolt against Ben. He’d just walk around to the front. His mother would let him in, assuming he didn’t have his own key to her house.

Annabelle’s heart raced, the pulse in her temple throbbed, and she knew she had a film of sweat on her upper lip, despite the cool early-April air outside.

The kin of my enemy is my enemy. Her grandmother had drummed that into her head since she could remember. Grandmere was already having triple conniptions because Annabelle was working for Elizabeth, Hal Jackson’s ex-wife. The idea that Annabelle might be attracted to Hal Jackson’s son would probably give her a stroke.

And she was attracted. Heck, she’d always been attracted to Ben, although she hadn’t seen him since he went off to college.

She’d known about Judy Bromfield’s death, of course; it had happened the summer after Ben graduated from high school. The whole thing had been horrible, especially when it came out that Ben’s father had been responsible for getting the man who’d raped and murdered Judy off on another charge only two months earlier.

Annabelle remembered Ben as cheerful, funny, wildly successful at everything he did. The golden boy. Now, although he sounded much the same, there was something cold at the center.

She recognized the wariness in Ben’s eyes. She saw it in the mirror every morning.

Back in high school, she’d thought he was the warmest, kindest person she’d ever known because he treated her the same way he treated everybody else.

Now he was asking her to dinner, and she longed to go, but didn’t dare. The only way to avoid becoming as big a slut as her mother had been was to avoid temptation like the plague. From the electrical connection she’d felt when she brushed off his clothes, Ben was a combination bubonic and pneumonic, with a big dash of anthrax thrown in.

Besides, he was Hal Jackson’s son. Grandmere would go crazy. Working for Elizabeth was bad enough.

But how was Annabelle expected to make enough money to support herself, not to mention avoiding the loss of her skills and reputation, when she’d come back to Memphis to look after Grandmere?

Elizabeth’s job offer had been a godsend. It would actually enhance Annabelle’s reputation. And it gave her a place to live while she was here as well.

Annabelle would not live in the mansion with her grandmother. The day Jonas had driven her to the plane for New York and design school, she’d made a solemn vow that she would never live there again.

Elizabeth had offered Annabelle the apartment over what was now a four-car garage, but what had originally been the carriage house. It was furnished—rather charmingly, as a matter of fact. Elizabeth Langley never did anything halfway. It was almost as large as her loft in SoHo. It even had a fireplace.

Now that she had shoved some of the furniture out of the way, set up a trestle table and brought in a sewing machine and serger, she had plenty of room to keep working until all hours of the night.

Better than sleep. Back where it had all happened, her dreams were even more troubled. She would not resort to pills. Reality was bad enough. Altered reality was a horror not to be contemplated.

She began to climb the steps to the workroom once more. What kind of human being marks the day she will finally be free as “when Grandmere dies?” A monster, obviously. But then, once a monster, always a monster. At least here everybody expected her to behave monstrously.

Ben had remembered her instantly; he’d gotten all embarrassed over his remark about killing his mother. In New York no one would have made the connection. In New York she was not Annabelle Langley, the bad seed.

“You all right?” Marian Wadsworth’s callused fingers stopped plying her needle for a moment and let the piece of Venice lace she held lie loose in her lap.

“Fine.” Annabelle shoved her hair out of her face for the fiftieth time since morning. “I am going to shave my head like a Buddhist nun.”

“It would grow back wilder than before.”

Annabelle picked up a foot-long piece of rayon seam binding off the floor and tied her hair into a ponytail at the back of her head. Without a rubber band, the binding would hold for an hour or so before it slid off.

She saw the glint of one of the missing paillettes in the crack between two floorboards and bent to pick it up. Then she saw another and dropped onto her hands and knees. “Funny thing. Ben Jackson nearly fell on me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He was up in that big old oak. I didn’t even know he was there, then suddenly, wham, he drops out of nowhere at my feet.”

Marian laughed and picked up the lace. “When he was a child he shinned up that tree whenever he wanted to get away.” She turned serious. “After Judy was killed, I think he practically lived up there all summer. It’s where he did his grieving. Is he all right?”

“Yes, Marian, your darling is all right, and incidentally, so am I.”

“I can see that, Belle, that’s why I asked about Ben.”

“I brushed him off and sent him back inside looking amazingly little the worse for wear. Ah, gotcha!” she added as she found another paillette.

“He was always one of those Teflon children who came from school looking as neat as he did when he left home.” Marian shook her head.

“I, on the other hand, looked as though I’d been through a wrestling match ten seconds after I dressed. Used to drive Grandmere frantic.” She sat back on her heels.

“How is she today?”

“Cross your fingers. I haven’t had a single call from the sitter, or nurse, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days.”

“Caregiver, I think, is the current word.”

“Damn expensive, when all they seem to do is sit around and watch soap operas.”

“Maybe this one will do a bit more.”

“Mrs. Mayhew does seem more conscientious. She keeps Grandmere’s room and bathroom clean, and sees to her own bedroom and bath, but I’ll probably have to get a cleaning team in for the rest of the house before long or the spiders will take over.”

“Well, don’t you try to do it. That place is big as a stadium.” Marian bent to her needle. “And all those knickknacks and sitarounds to dust. Why not ask Jonas to help you out?”

“His hands are already full with Grandmere’s garden. At least the neighbors can’t complain about that. He’s not getting any younger either, you know. He does the marketing and takes her back and forth to the doctor’s.”

“How long can you keep this up?” Marian asked.

Annabelle dug her fingers into the aching muscles along the tops of her shoulders. “As long as I have to. She’s always been terrified of nursing homes. I can’t do that to her.”

Marian mumbled something as she bit off the thread.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Don’t bite the thread that way if you expect to have any teeth left when you’re seventy, and don’t mumble,” Annabelle said. “Tell me what you said.”

Marian picked up the embroidery scissors that hung from a silk cord around her neck and ostentatiously clipped the end of the thread she’d just bitten. She sighed and looked at Annabelle. “I said it would serve the old witch right.”

Annabelle plucked the last paillette from the crack and rose easily to her feet. “I don’t want putting her in a nursing home on my conscience as well.”

“Pooh! Stop it. Get it through your head that you don’t carry any weight or any guilt for what happened to your mother. Your father admitted it and went to jail for it.”

“To save me, you mean. Everybody knows that. Grandmere—”

“Mrs. Langley is a poisonous viper who did everything in her power to destroy anyone and everyone who crossed her path. Lord knows why it gave her so much pleasure, but it did.”

“She took me in and did the best she could with me. She’s a very unhappy woman,” Annabelle answered.

“Oh, no doubt. If there were an object lesson in the Golden Rule, she is it. Not one of the nasty things she has ever done to anybody has made her one bit nicer or one bit happier. She’s like one of those poison toads—the more venom she uses, the more she has.”

“Why, Marian, I knew you didn’t like her, but I never realized you loathed her that way. What’s she done to you?”

“Watching what she’s done to you is bad enough. And laying so much guilt on you that you came home to tend to her after all these years, and your career in New York and all.” Marian sniffled and wiped her hand under her eyes. “I’m glad to have you, but the whole thing makes me sick.”

Annabelle slipped the paillettes into the pocket of her shirt and walked around the table to drop a hand on Marian’s shoulder. “She’s my only family. Besides, I screwed myself up before she got the chance.”

“No, you did not.” Marian covered Annabelle’s hand with hers. “You were a little bitty girl. But all those years in that house with that harpy—well, child, you need about ten years of therapy, is all I’m saying.”

“Oh, thank you very much.” Annabelle laughed. “I’ve had years of therapy. Otherwise I’d probably be dead. This is as good as it gets. I function extremely well in my own milieu, and people leave me alone. And it’s nice to have friends who understand.”

“Well, you just understand that whatever you have to do to make your life come out all right, you do it. I mean that, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Annabelle saluted. “Now, where did you put that piece of lace I bled all over? I’ve got to soak it in some ice water before the stain sets.”

Marian indicated the side table with a nod of her head. “Over there. Not much blood. Only a drop or two.”

“I’ll run it across to my place and put it in the kitchen sink. Then I can flatten it out when I go back after work.”

“After work is now.” Marian set down her needle and embroidery hoop. “I should have this piece mended in an hour or so tomorrow.”

Annabelle leaned over her. “You do incredible work, Maid Marian. Nobody would ever know how much damage this piece endured before Elizabeth rescued it.”

Marian laughed. “And now it will have a new life in the Countess So-and-So’s gown for the opening of the Paris Opera, or Mrs. Texas Oil for her daughter’s wedding.” She laid the piece down with satisfaction. “I am good, aren’t I? You know, nobody ever called me Maid Marian but Ben, when he was a little boy. I used to read him the stories about Robin Hood. Even then he had a drive to right all the wrongs in the world.”

“It fits you.”

“True, unfortunately.” She carefully spread the piece of ecru lace on the worktable in front of her. The table was covered in fine green felt, so the lace-work showed clearly. “There. The actual mending is finished—the tatting, I mean. Now I just have to catch the edges so nothing ravels.” She pushed herself to her feet, removed her half glasses, stowed them in a navy leather case on the table, reached into her pocket for a red case, and slipped her bifocals on in their place. “Ah, now I can see you.” She peered at Annabelle. “And you look like hell. Go home, watch television, read a book. Go to a movie. Call an old school friend. Get out and do something.”

“Nope.” Annabelle carefully folded the delicate white lace, slipped it into a piece of tissue paper and followed Marian to the door. “Don’t fuss. I’m fine. This is what I enjoy. I’ll put on some Mozart or some Stones, fix myself a quick meal, put this lace in water and run over to check on Grandmere. I don’t have time for much else.”

She clicked off the lights in the workroom and followed Marian down the back stairs. As she passed the swinging door to the front of the house, she wondered whether Ben and his current tootsie were still there with Mrs. Jackson.

He was still the best-looking, most charismatic man she’d ever met. And if anything, even farther out of her reach and her orbit than he was when he was a senior and she was a freshman. “A cat can look at a king,” she whispered, and opened the baize door a tiny crack.

What she saw was not Ben, but Brittany, now relaxed on the sofa with her long, lovely brown arms stretched along its back, her slim ankles crossed, her streaked blond hair falling as precisely to her shoulders as though her hairdresser had cut it with a laser level. Maybe he had.

Annabelle let the door close softly.

Totally out of her league. Like comparing Claudia Schiffer to Ma Kettle.

And that was just looks. Add in social grace, acceptability, education, and it was like comparing Claudia Schiffer to a female Cro-Magnon.

She walked across the backyard and opened the door to the stairs that led to the apartment that Elizabeth Jackson had turned into guest quarters.

The stairs were narrow and precipitous, but were covered with a creamy plush carpet. The walls were painted the palest yellow, and charming old French flower prints stair-stepped up the wall beside them.

Annabelle kicked off the backless clogs she wore while she was working, remembered the paillettes in the pocket of her shirt, pulled them out and carefully dropped them into a cut-crystal ashtray.

Since she didn’t smoke and wouldn’t dream of allowing smoke anywhere near the fragile fabrics she worked on, the ashtray was clean. She carefully unwrapped the white lace from its tissue and laid it on the drainboard of the sink in the galley kitchen while she filled a bowl with ice cubes.

She filled the sink, dropped in the ice cubes and swished them around before she began to inspect the lace.

The piece was good-sized—several yards. She fingered it to find the spots of smeared blood so that she could immerse only that area and as little of the rest as possible. No sense wetting the whole thing. It would weigh a ton and possibly damage the fragile stitches.

Aha. She found the first spot. Amazing that such a little thing as a pinprick could make such a mess. “Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?” she said idly, realizing as she said it that one of her starving-actor friends said quoting from Macbeth was bad luck.

She snapped on the light over the sink and glanced down at the lace across her hands.

She froze. A sound she couldn’t begin to recognize rose in her throat.

She hadn’t bled that much.

The lace in her hands was drenched, dripping with gore, and her hands were covered in bright fresh blood, so thick she felt as though she could dye the water scarlet.

“No!” She dropped the lace, turned, shoulders hunched, head bowed.

She felt her gorge rise and fought the urge to vomit. “No.” She nearly yelled the word. She felt the world spin, her vision blur.

After what seemed a lifetime, but was probably no more than a few seconds, she managed to force herself under control. She took a deep breath and turned back to the drainboard.

She was nearly afraid to look at her hands.

Her hands were dry and clean. She picked up the lace. Maybe eight or nine dots of brownish dried blood stained it. She stared at it, frowning, puzzled.

Then she shook her head. “Trick of the light, obviously. Sunset through the window.”

She realized she was speaking aloud. The sound of her own voice in the silent room was momentarily comforting. “Stupid. Ought to get my eyes examined.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose where her half glasses sat during the day. “It’s Ben’s fault. He’s the one that fell out of the tree, and here I am with the concussion and hallucinations.”

She slipped the bloodstained portion of the lace into the ice water, sluiced it around gently for a minute, then left it immersed. As she dried her hands, she almost expected to see blood on the towel. Ridiculous.

She walked over to the armoire in the corner that held the stereo and television. She didn’t want to listen to the news. It was always bad. She’d had enough mayhem for a lifetime.

She flipped through the meager stack of CDs. Vivaldi? Mozart? Too orderly. Too optimistic. She needed angst. She found an old version of the Kindertotenlieder. Peachy. Enough angst there for a whole hundred years’ worth of the Black Plague.

But triumphant at the end.

That didn’t happen in real life. In real life you muddled along and hoped to survive with your brain and your body intact and without causing too much damage.

In her case, it was a little late for that already.




CHAPTER THREE


WHILE HER TV DINNER microwaved, Annabelle curled into a tight little ball in the yellow club chair beside the empty fireplace. She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, and then ran her fingers down her face. When she touched her cheeks she realized they were wet with perspiration and her fingertips were actually shaking.

What had happened with the lace? She could tell herself it was a trick of the light, but she knew better.

Jonas once told her that Governor Huey Long of Louisiana carried around a mock certificate of release from the Louisiana state mental institution as proof that he was sane. She had often wished she had a certificate like that so she could point to it and say to herself, “See. You are not a nutcase.”

In a pinch, she could call on a couple of excellent psychotherapists to certify she wasn’t any crazier than so-called healthy people.

Okay, so she hated cocktail parties and meeting new people and speaking in public.

But hallucinations? Never, not in all her years. Not even when the nightmares had still been coming at least once or twice a week.

And she hadn’t had the nightmares for years.

Until she’d come back to Memphis to work for the wife of the man who had failed to defend her father successfully. But they’d been divorced for years. Hal Jackson had disappeared years ago just as her own father had disappeared when he’d been released from prison.

Her New York roommate, Vickie, had begged her not to leave New York. Annabelle managed to keep paying her half of the rent so that Vickie didn’t have to sublet. She needed her place to come back to when she left Memphis. Together she and Vickie had done a bunch of work decorating the SoHo loft, and they’d never be able to find another one now at anything like a reasonable rate.

But family was family. That was all that mattered, really. Grandmere needed Annabelle because there was no one else.

When Annabelle had had no one else, her grandmother hadn’t hesitated to take her in.

She’d fed and clothed Annabelle, sent her to the best schools, even tried from time to time to act like a regular grandmother. It wasn’t her fault that she’d failed so miserably. She was a dragon by nature, and the disastrous circumstances under which she’d acquired Annabelle had destroyed the way of life she cherished, turned the woman into a bitter recluse.

It didn’t even matter that she’d made Annabelle pay psychologically over the years. Grandmere had done the best she could. Now it was Annabelle’s turn. That was the way families worked.

She couldn’t manage to look after Grandmere from eighteen hundred miles away any longer, to turn over her care to unknown women who came and went almost as often as they changed Grandmere’s antique linen sheets.

Six months wasn’t much to give back for all those years and all those school bills. Dr. Renfro said his best guess was that Grandmere probably had less than six months left.

Annabelle dreaded losing the old woman. They had always had a love-hate relationship, but when Grandmere died, the last tiny root that tethered her to home would be gone. She’d be forever adrift.

Right. The old lady would outlive them all if will was any criterion.

The microwave dinged. Annabelle turned off the CD and flipped on the television. The news was over. Now she at least had the company of human voices and laugh tracks.

She put her dinner on a tray, took it back to the club chair and ate with little attention to the television sitcom.

Her finger, the one that she’d jabbed with the dressmaker’s pin, throbbed. She’d doctored it with antibiotic ointment and covered it with a bandage, but it still hurt. Drat Ben anyway! The thought of him set other nerves throbbing.

She glanced over at the lace, now spread carefully on a sheet of white cardboard on her worktable. At least she didn’t see the thing dripping with blood any longer.

After dinner she had to drive over to check on Grandmere, to be certain the current caregiver hadn’t given up in disgust as so many of the others had, or that Grandmere hadn’t lobbed a silver tray at her head and brained the poor woman.

Amazing how strong Grandmere could be when she was angry. Lying in that big old bed she looked no larger than a kitten.

Annabelle picked up her tray and took it into the kitchen. Then she swung her black sweater over her shoulders. The April nights still got chilly. As she started for the stairs the telephone shrilled.

She yipped. Silly to be so jumpy at sudden sounds. She grabbed the phone and said, “Yes, hello,” and knew she sounded crabby.

“Uh, Annabelle?” A male voice. “It’s Ben, Ben Jackson.”

“Yes, Ben, I recognized your voice.” Her body had recognized his voice. She wasn’t about to tell him that.

“Look, I wanted to say again how sorry I am…”

“No need. I understand perfectly.” She started to put the receiver down. His voice stopped her.

“The thing is, I’d like to make it up to you if you’d let me.”

“Not necessary. Ben, I’m kind of in a hurry right now.”

“Oh. Sorry. I’ll make this fast. Let me take you to dinner Thursday night.”

“No thank you.”

“It’s not a real date, only Mother’s Thursday-night thing.”

“No way.”

“It’s right across the yard, Annabelle. You’ve got to eat.”

“I work with your mother—no, make that for your mother—five days a week. The last thing she wants is to see my shining face at dinner with all those bigwigs she always has.”

“It’s a really small group. Probably people who remember you.”

“Wow! Talk about your really great enticement.”

“Look. You’re the one who came back to town. You can’t hide yourself upstairs in the garage forever. You’ve got to come out sometime. You play hermit in New York as well?”

“In New York I am plain old Annabelle Langley. Here I’m—well, you know what I am.”

“It’s ancient history, and you didn’t have anything to do with it. Come with me, please. If only to make me feel less of a jerk.”

“Ben…”

“Next step is I blackmail you.”

“What?”

“I mean, I’ll make Mom put pressure on you.”

“That is dirty pool.”

“Don’t I know it. Save me. Come with me Thursday.”

She dropped her forehead against her hand. “Okay, Ben. I’ll come. But I don’t have any dress-up clothes.”

“Whatever you wear will be great.” He suddenly sounded immensely cheerful. “I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.”

“Pick me up?” She laughed. “Ben, I live in your mother’s backyard. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then shall we say I will call for you, Mademoiselle Langley?”

“Whatever. Now I really do have to go see about Grandmere.”

“Sure. Sorry. Bye.” As he hung up, she was certain she heard a shouted “Yes!” down the line.

“YES!” Ben said as he clicked his cell phone shut. He considered doing a victory dance, but suspected that the anteroom of the men’s room at the club wasn’t the place to do it. As it was, one of the late golfers raised his eyebrows. Ben grinned at him, and went back outside to find Brittany.

What on earth was he going to do about Brittany? She wasn’t responsible for his attack of insanity, but he could not, absolutely, positively and totally could not take her home and to bed. Not tonight, not ever again.

But he couldn’t actually say to her, “So, Brittany, sorry about this, but I’ve fallen madly in love with my mother’s new chef d’atelier.” That ought to go over big. He’d read somewhere that when a woman asked a man into her bed, it was only gentlemanly to accept. Not as if it would be the first time. Or even the twentieth, come to that.

Was that part of the reason he’d gone crazy? Was the first careless rapture with Brittany dying down?

Actually, there had never been much careless rapture with Brittany. Just workmanlike, satisfying, athletic and inventive sex. She had a great body and one hell of a lot of expertise. Going to bed with her wasn’t something any red-blooded male would turn down lightly.

So how come he couldn’t just accept the implicit offer? Who would he hurt? Not Annabelle, who didn’t know the way he felt, didn’t know he existed, probably. Not Brittany, who wouldn’t be doing anything she hadn’t done with him before. Not himself…

Himself. Taking a woman to bed just to be accommodating was the sort of thing his father did. Over and over again. Casually wounding his family, and ultimately the women he seduced. Ben had sworn he’d never be that sort of man. He wasn’t about to start now.

“Ready, darling?” Brittany looked up from her cappuccino and reached for his hand. He took it and helped her up. “Ben, sweetie, are you okay?” she asked. “You look kind of green.”

“Sorry, I think I had too many crab cakes,” he said as he followed her to the front door. “Would you mind if I went home to bed?”

For a moment her eyes grew hostile, then she smiled and touched his cheek. “You want me to come over and tuck you in?”

He managed what he hoped was a suitably wan smile. “No, I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep and some antacid. I’ll follow you home and make sure you get inside okay.”

“Don’t be silly, sweetie. I’m five blocks away and you know what a bear my doorman is. Just go on home, snuggle down, and think of what you’re missing.” She arched an eyebrow.

He opened her car door and handed her in. As she swung her incredible legs behind the steering wheel he thought for a fleeting instant that he probably ought to be institutionalized for sheer idiocy. “Nevertheless, I will follow you. No argument. I know what can happen to a beautiful woman in five blocks.”

“You are a dear,” she said, and blew him an air kiss. “Call me tomorrow?”

He nodded and turned toward his own car. So much for honor. He’d have to work out some way to let her down gently without wounding her pride. He suspected she wouldn’t go quietly.

“SHH!” The deep voice hissed from the top of the stairs. “The old—Mrs. Langley is asleep already.”

Annabelle climbed the broad walnut staircase, turned the corner at the half landing and ran lightly up the rest of the stairs to the gallery that overhung the staircase. With each step the Oriental runner threw up a fine cloud of dust. Have to get somebody in here soon, she thought, before the place becomes haunted by brown recluse spiders and mice. She stifled a cough and whispered back, “Any trouble?”

The woman weighed twice as much as Annabelle. Her pale arms were the size of bolsters and looked about as solid. She rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. “Better’n last night. Didn’t throw anything at me.”

Annabelle fought to remember the woman’s name. There had been so many in the past two months since Grandmere’s last attack, and although she knew most of them only through communication with the employment agency, she’d met three just since she came to town. That made one a week. “Thanks, Mrs.…” she hesitated. “Mrs. Mayhew.” That was it. Beulah Mayhew. She’d come three days ago.

“She don’t bother me none,” Mrs. Mayhew said. “I’ve had a whole lot worse. At least she don’t outweigh me.” She laughed silently and the rolls under her arms jiggled. “Want a glass of sweet tea? I got some made in the icebox.”

Annabelle smiled. None of the others had ever asked her to join them for so much as a roasted peanut. “No, thanks. But give me a rain check, please. Do you think I can look in on her without waking her?”

“Annabelle!” A querulous and surprisingly strong voice called from the doorway at the end of the hall. “Is that you?”

Annabelle’s shoulders sagged. “Yes, Grandmere.”

Mrs. Mayhew rolled her eyes and whispered, “Go say hello. I’ll come lay down the law in a little while.”

Annabelle’s feet dragged over the exquisite Kirman runner that Grandmere had cut down for the hall. The dealer who had sold it to her had been horrified, but she’d told him it was her rug and she’d do as she liked with it.

Annabelle pasted a suitable smile on her face, squared her shoulders and walked across the threshold into that room she’d hated for twenty-three years.

The room was the same size as the living room, and beyond it the summer sleeping porch over the solarium downstairs had been glassed in to create a conservatory. The plants had long since died of neglect, but the room still held the faint odor of decaying mulch overlaid with the acrid tinge of medicine.

Here there were Oriental rugs on top of Oriental rugs. They had always been Grandmere’s grand passion. At first Annabelle had felt her grandmother’s joy in antique Orientals must signal a kinship between them. Her grandmother must truly appreciate the rich colors and beautiful patterns of the rugs. Then she discovered Grandmere saw them only as visible signs of her wealth. She possessed them as she tried to possess everything and everyone around her.

That was why she liked the ornate pre–Civil War furniture. The high-relief walnut eagle still perched on top of the seven-foot-tall headboard, caught in that moment before it stoops to impale its prey on three-inch talons. Annabelle had nightmares about those talons for years. She still shuddered at the sight of them.

Grandmere lay in the center of the bed, propped on soft, linen pillows edged with fine handmade lace.

The same hawk nose and piercing eyes as the eagle. With age and illness the likeness had become really scary. But she’d lost much of her heavy pale hair, and now pink scalp showed through the fine white hairs that were still beautifully cut and dressed once a week when her beautician visited to do her hair, nails and feet.

Her pale blue eyes, so different from Annabelle’s dark ones, held the same mad intelligence as the eagle’s.

“Come and kiss me, child, if you can bear to touch this wrinkled old skin.”

Fishing for a compliment. A good day, then. Annabelle kissed her cheek and tasted the French powder that Grandmere wore even to bed with the expensive perfume she still imported. “Nonsense. You’ll never age.”

“Liar.” She grabbed Annabelle’s wrist and pulled her down close to whisper, “That woman is torturing me to death. I have fired her a dozen times, but she refuses to go. You must do it.”

“What kind of torture?”

“She beats me.” Grandmere frowned at the door. “And she steals. She stole the pearls your grandfather gave me for our tenth wedding anniversary.”

“The pearls are in your safe-deposit box at the bank.”

“She’s starving me to death. Look at her, then look at me. She eats her food and my food too. I haven’t had a mouthful all day.” The old voice turned querulous once more.

Annabelle pulled gently away and glanced at the silver tray on the side table. The meal might not be gourmet, but it seemed adequate. She could tell from the European way that her grandmother had laid her knife and fork at angles across the plate when she finished that Mrs. Mayhew had not eaten her grandmother’s dinner. “Would you like me to bring you a sandwich?”

Grandmere sniffed. “A sandwich? What wine does one drink with a sandwich?”

“You can’t have wine, Grandmere.”

The pale eyes flashed. “You’ve drunk it all, haven’t you, you loathsome child?” She began to cry. “The Napoleon brandy that your grandfather bought. The champagne. It’s all gone, isn’t it? You’ve drunk it or sold it, haven’t you? That’s what your mother would do—sell what she couldn’t swig down.”

“No, Grandmere. The wine is there. You have the only key to the wine cellar, remember?”

“You’ve had a duplicate made. Wouldn’t put it past you. You’re in it with her.” Abruptly she turned her face into the pillows. “Leave me alone the way you always do. Everybody always leaves me alone.”

“You’re not alone, Grandmere. Mrs. Mayhew’s here. I’m here now. Jonas is here.”

“Jonas?” The old woman cackled. “Jonas? Oh, that is rich. Jonas!” Suddenly she thrust Annabelle away. “Get out and don’t come back. You’re just like her. Evil! The bad seed! I knew it when I took you in. Get out!”

Annabelle stood. She was well aware they were no longer talking about Mrs. Mayhew but about Annabelle’s mother. Grandmere had despised Chantal on sight and never ceased reminding Annabelle that she had been the only one to see what a scheming hussy the woman was.

Annabelle might as well leave. Grandmere would call her back later, accuse her of running out, but at the moment staying would only provoke another outburst. That was the way it always went. “Good night, Grandmere. Sleep well.” She bent to touch the old lady’s cheek with hers and drew back just in time to avoid the sharp red nails that clawed at her. Just like the eagle.

“I said get out. Whore! Slut! Look at you. Just like her!”

Annabelle backed away. As she reached the door, her grandmother sat up. “How many husbands have you seduced this week? The only thing you’ve ever done right in your miserable life was to kill her!”

Annabelle fled past Mrs. Mayhew, who stood in the doorway with her mouth open. She nearly tripped on the staircase where the brass bar had come loose from under the stair tread on one end. She knelt to push it back into place. She couldn’t afford to have Mrs. Mayhew break her neck.

As she fled out the back door she heard her grandmother calling after her querulously, but she did not stop. By the time she slammed the door of her car and turned on the ignition she was crying. Anger? Pain? Loss?

Tonight had been really bad. She’d heard that some elderly, sick people lost their connection to the present, and kept getting today mixed up with yesterday, but Grandmere’s mind had always been sharp. Too darned sharp.

She took a deep breath. Grandmere had always been so angry at life, and now she had nothing to look forward to except death. It must be hard to see Annabelle with her life ahead of her. At times like this, she wanted to hate the old woman, but as she’d told Marian, Grandmere was all she had. All she had ever had since her father disappeared.

As she drove by the elaborate four-car garage, she saw the lights were still on upstairs. It was only nine o’clock. Surely she could call on Jonas.

But not without phoning first. She used her cell phone, and, when he picked up, told him that she was downstairs and asked for permission to visit.

“Of course, Miss Langley.”

When he opened the door, she hugged him. “What’s with the ‘Miss Langley’ stuff, Jonas?” He stood aside to let her into his cozy living room. A book lay open on the arm of his easy chair under a reading light. The room was furnished in castoffs from the big house and some of the finest rugs. Jonas at least appreciated them.

“You’re all grown-up now. I shouldn’t be calling you Annabelle.”

“Bull. I’ll always be Annabelle to you. You got any cold beer?” She collapsed on the brown velour sofa and laid her head back. The nerve along her right temple throbbed. She massaged the pulse gently and hoped it wouldn’t keep her awake.

“Lite or regular?”

“Oh, Lite, please, if you have it.” The beer should at least help her relax. She patted her hips. “Always Lite. And I’ll take it straight out of the bottle, thanks.”

Jonas handed her a long-necked bottle covered with ice crystals and took his own to the easy chair. “And then you’ll belch loudly?”

Annabelle laughed. “As loudly as possible. Make sure she hears me all the way across the backyard. Times like this I wish I chewed tobacco so I could hawk and spit.”

“Well, I don’t. She get to you tonight? Was it a bad one?”

“Worse than usual. Now she says that Mrs. Mayhew beats her, steals from her and is starving her.”

Jonas snorted. “Nonsense. I watch pretty closely and I’m a fair judge of people. Beulah Mayhew’s the best you’ve had. Let’s hope she stays. When you going back to New York?”

“I can’t, Jonas, not right this minute.”

“You should get out of this town as quick as you can. Put her in a nursing home. I know you don’t want to, but I’ve been checking them out. They’re expensive, but there are a few good ones.”

Annabelle shook her head. “I can’t abandon her. As much as I hate to admit it, she didn’t abandon me, and she could have.”

“No, she saw to it that you paid for her generosity every day of your young life.” His face clouded. “There are times I could kill her myself.”

Annabelle finished her beer, went over and set the bottle on the drainboard by the sink. “Well, don’t. You’d get caught and then where would I be? You’re my only friend in the world. Thanks, Jonas. By the way, what I could see of the yard looks lovely as always.”

“I try. Hard to get decent help these days.”

“At least money is not a problem. Not for her, at any rate.”

“For you?”

“Not at the moment.” She brushed her lips across his cheek.

“If you do need money, let me know. I have some put by.”

“I’m fine, Jonas, really. Elizabeth pays me better than I deserve, and I get the apartment rent free.”

“Just remember, I’m here if you need me.”

“I always need you. I’d never have gotten this far without you. And if you ever call me Miss Langley again, I’ll deck you.” She trotted down the steps and waved over her shoulder. She could see Jonas standing in the open door of his apartment in her rearview mirror until she turned out of the driveway.

Before she went to bed, Annabelle carefully rolled the clean, dry lace between sheets of acid-free tissue. The blood had come out completely, thank God. The lace was from an early-twentieth-century wedding dress. With luck it would become another bride’s treasured memory. With luck, yards of fine Swiss batiste, some supervision from Mrs. Jackson’s chef d’atelier, and the fine mending and sewing talents of Marian and the other seamstresses.

Annabelle stripped and pulled on the oversize silk pajama top that served as night wear. As she looked at herself in the mirror and picked up her toothbrush, she murmured, “Elizabeth needs a chef d’atelier the way I need a third leg.” She knew she was only a glorified seamstress and purchasing agent. Marian and the Vietnamese women who sewed for Elizabeth needed precious little supervision.

Still, she was grateful to Elizabeth for making a place for her, giving her a fancy title and even providing living quarters rent free.

“Your being here frees me to go to lace auctions and hunt garage sales for old lace dresses and things, and allows Marian to get on with the sewing and mending,” Elizabeth told her. “Of course I need you.”

Kind woman. They were all kind. And she was grateful. Only sometimes she got so tired of having to be grateful.




CHAPTER FOUR


“WHY DID I AGREE to this?” Annabelle said to her reflection. Maybe she’d simply tell Ben she’d changed her mind about going to Elizabeth’s dinner party. Elizabeth obviously had no idea Ben planned to bring her, otherwise she would have mentioned it. She probably thought he was bringing the tall blonde he’d been looking at dress designs with.

She bundled her masses of hair into a semblance of a French roll and sprayed it long and hard with a hair spray that was guaranteed to hold like superglue, but tendrils still escaped around her face and at the nape of her neck. The heck with them.

She pulled on an ankle-length black skirt and slipped her feet into a pair of chunky black shoes. God, she looked as though she’d been working in the salt mines of Transylvania!

She flipped the shoes off and into a corner of the closet, then ripped off the skirt and threw it onto the floor after them. Once, just once, she wished she were six foot four and weighed ninety-six pounds like the models in New York. Instead, she resembled her roommate Vickie’s two rescued alley cats, Dumpy and Frumpy.

She pulled a pair of black slacks off a skirt hanger and climbed into them, then a flame-orange turtle-neck sweater, and over that a wildly patterned Tibetan quilted tabard.

Lord, she’d burn up at a dinner party in April!

Off came the tabard and sweater. Off came the slacks. Onto the floor.

Okay. Something simple but elegant. She reached into the back of the closet and pulled out the black Chinese silk cheongsam Vickie had made her for Christmas. She’d never had the nerve to wear it. It fit perfectly, but the style was more suited to the tiny Chinese ladies from the Lower East Side and Mott Street. When she glanced at her watch, she nearly whimpered. Ben would be on time, of course. And that gave her five minutes.

She yanked the silk dress over her head, pulled on a pair of high-heeled black strappy sandals she’d bought in a moment of madness because they were on sale, grabbed her small black purse—the closest thing she had to an evening bag—and did up the fancy gold frogs along the neck of the dress.

She hadn’t even looked at the mirror when the bell at the foot of the stairs sounded, and a moment later she heard Ben’s voice. “It’s open. Okay if I come up?”

“No! I mean yes!” She shoved the closet door closed on the disaster inside. He might take one look at her and offer to take her to McDonald’s instead of his mother’s house.

She heard his footsteps at the top of the stairs and turned to face him.

“Suffering succotash,” he whispered.

She caught her breath. “I’m sorry, Ben. I told you I didn’t have anything to wear.”

He shook his head. “Couldn’t prove it by me. You look gorgeous.”

“I do? I mean, I don’t. I feel like a sausage.”

“You don’t look like any kind of sausage I’ve ever eaten. Come on. You know how Mom is when people are late.”

“Ben, are you sure you want to do this?” she said, but his hand was already warm on the small of her back as he herded her toward the staircase.

“Yes, ma’am, I do. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

They walked out into the fragile April night, into fairy lights that glimmered in the trees in the Jackson garden, and deputized for the wan sliver of moon that rode above their heads. She could smell the azaleas and the early roses.

She looked up at Ben as he tucked her hand under his arm. “Watch your step, Princess Turandot, the paving’s uneven.”

“Wasn’t she that opera bitch who beheaded all her suitors?”

“Ah, but in the end she was vanquished by love.”

As I hope you will be, Ben thought. He heaved a sigh of relief. At least he hadn’t been totally daffy when he’d fallen for Annabelle. With her hair up and those little curls around her face, and that incredible Chinese dress, she was the most luscious woman he’d ever seen. Wildly sexy. Next to her all the blond beauties looked as though they’d come out of the oven too soon and been stored in the refrigerator too long. Annabelle radiated heat.

He had heard all the stories about her mother, the hot-blooded Cajun from Lafayette, who’d refused to wear stockings and white cotton gloves in the summertime and went barefoot in the Langley garden.

And had inspired such desperate passion in her husband that he had killed her. At least he’d gone to prison for it. He knew the gossip as well, of course. That he’d lied to protect his child, the real killer.

Looking down at Annabelle, he refused to believe this beautiful girl could do anything that heinous even by accident.

He couldn’t change his life’s direction. He still wanted to be district attorney, and then maybe governor…senator.

So, if he intended to do all the things he planned with Annabelle by his side, there was only one solution.

He’d have to change Annabelle. At least in public. In private he hoped he read the signs right—that she was every bit as sensual as she looked.

“I can’t do this,” Annabelle said when they were three steps from the back door.

“Sure you can.” His hand on her back grew a little more urgent.

“Who’s going to be there?”

“No idea. Probably some politicos, a college professor or two. Nobody special.”

She stopped dead. “Who would you consider special? Prince Charles and the Dalai Lama?”

“Come on, Annabelle. I’m right here. I made Mother promise to seat us together…”

“She knows you’re bringing me?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I tell her?”

“She didn’t mention it.”

Ben shrugged. He removed his hand. “It’s just not a big deal to her.”

“More likely she hoped one of us would come to our senses. That would be me.” Annabelle started back toward her apartment.

“Oh no you don’t,” Ben said, and reached for her arm. “Just remember the old saw about visualizing everybody naked.”

“Are you crazy? Besides, what if they’re thinking about me the same way?”

I certainly will be, Ben thought, but he suspected to say so would have been really, really counterproductive. He gulped instead.

“Do you intend to stand out there all night?”

Both of them jumped.

Elizabeth said from the darkness just inside the back door, “You’re the last to arrive. You’ve missed cocktails. We’re almost ready to sit down to dinner.”

“Elizabeth,” Annabelle began.

“And don’t even dream of chickening out at this point, Annabelle.” Her voice softened. “Come on. It’s going to be fun once you plunge in.” She opened the screen door and held it back. “It’s a tiny group.”

Annabelle sighed. So did Ben, but his sigh was of relief.

Annabelle moved toward the door as though it were the route to the gallows. As she reached the lights over the steps, Elizabeth said, “My dear, where did you get that dress? It’s marvelous. Perfect for you.”

“My roommate. She’s a designer for a small house. She made it for me as a Christmas present.”

“Well, if she ever needs a job, tell her to look me up.”

“I don’t think Vickie would leave New York even to become head designer for Chanel.”

Elizabeth followed Annabelle down the short hall to the green baize door into the front of the house. “With computers, she could work on the third moon of Jupiter, assuming there is one.” Elizabeth pushed open the door and stepped through. “Everyone. Here is my errant son, finally, and for those of you who don’t know or don’t remember her, this is Annabelle Langley, who’s running Elizabeth Lace for me.”

Annabelle stood blinking in the light. She was the youngest person in the room. For a moment the faces swam in front of her eyes and she wished she’d brought her glasses. Then a tall, gray-haired and very distinguished man stepped into her field of vision with a broad smile on his face and his hand extended.

“Welcome, Annabelle. I, for one, am delighted that you came back to rescue Elizabeth. She’s been working entirely too many hours to suit me.”

She took the proffered hand and shook it.

“I’m Ben’s boss, Phil Mainwaring.”

She gulped. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

“God help me, when beautiful women start to call you sir, life is over!” Mainwaring laughed.

Annabelle glanced at Ben. Didn’t he know who Mainwaring was? Well, obviously he knew since he worked for the man. Didn’t he know who Mainwaring had been? Did it really matter so little to everyone after all these years?

She felt her shoulders begin to relax. Maybe she’d been kidding herself. The murder was over twenty-five years old and had passed into Memphis legend by this time. Maybe people regarded her as just another one of Ben’s girlfriends.

“Come along, all, let’s sit down or the salmon mousse will ooze,” Elizabeth said, taking Phil Mainwaring’s arm and leading him toward the big dining room across the hall from the room that served as a showroom during the day and a living room at night.

An hour later Annabelle realized that she was actually enjoying herself. The conversation was intelligent and funny. Not, thank God, about fashion.

Ben didn’t seem to be watching her as though she were a time bomb. The group was small—only eight. Annabelle worked very hard to remember names.

Elizabeth Jackson and Phil Mainwaring were apparently an item. Across from Annabelle sat a grizzled and shabby professor of religious studies from the university with his equally grizzled wife who looked as though her skin covered knotted ropes. They were both Ph.Ds, apparently. May and Gene Dressler or Ressler, or something like that.

The other couple, if indeed they were a couple, were charming, suave amateur actors who worked at the local community theater every chance they got and made pots of money doing something financial together during the day. She had no idea whether they lived together or not, but they certainly seemed to act very much like an old married couple. For the moment, she couldn’t for the life of her remember their names, and it was a bit late in the evening for her to ask again. She’d have to find out from Ben.

The meal was excellent and served by a caterer, so Elizabeth didn’t have to leave the table. The mousse was followed by a lemon sorbet, a salad and then by duck a` l’orange and vegetables.

After the salad plates were cleared, the doors to the kitchen opened and the caterer and his assistant rolled in a flaming chocolate bombe covered in meringue and whipped cream. The flames came not from brandy that had been set on fire, but from a little garden of birthday candles on top.

Ben started singing “Happy Birthday” and everyone else joined in except Elizabeth, who sat at the head of the table laughing and clapping her hands.

A birthday party? Ben had landed her at a birthday party without bothering to tell her that’s what it was? Annabelle felt her face turn purple with chagrin. What would she do if the dessert was followed by the opening of presents? She hadn’t brought a single thing. She gave Ben a look that would curdle milk, but he only grinned back as though he hadn’t a clue why she was upset.

“Oh, what fun! It won’t explode, will it?” Elizabeth stood, sucked in a deep breath and blew out all the candles while everyone laughed and applauded. “Whew! Thank the Lord you didn’t put the whole number of my age on top. We’d have set the house on fire.”

Annabelle noticed that when Elizabeth sat down Phil Mainwaring covered her hand with his, and they smiled at each other.

“Speech!” shouted Gene what’s-his-name, who had drunk, and was still drinking, quantities of the excellent red wine. Annabelle thought he was more than a little tight. From the dark look his wife threw him, she wasn’t the only person who thought so.

“No speeches. I am merely glad to be a year older and surrounded by friends and family.” She grinned at Ben. “The only thing that would make things perfect is for Ben to make me a grandmother before I am in my dotage.”

“Hear, hear!” Mainwaring raised his glass.

At that moment a clock somewhere chimed a single note for the quarter hour, and Professor Gene knocked over his full wineglass on the white lace tablecloth.

“Gene, you idiot!” his wife snapped.

Annabelle watched the dark red river flow across the table straight toward her.

The room seemed to go dark. The wine became thick, bright blood reaching out to stain her hands.

If it reached her she’d drown.

Vaguely she registered activity—the caterer rushing in from the kitchen, noise, people trying to apologize and act calm and smooth out the awkward social situation. She couldn’t take her eyes off the blood that rolled toward her like a sea.

“No!” She stood so fast her chair toppled onto the floor. She backed away with her hands in front of her to stop that terrible tide. She had to get away from it, had to run, had to hide where it couldn’t reach her, couldn’t drown her.

She had no memory of reaching the backyard or flying across it. Her sandaled feet clattering on the stairway to her apartment brought her to her senses.

Annabelle opened the door and nearly fell into the living room.

She pulled off her sandals with hands that were still shaking, then kicked the shoes all the way into the corner. Suddenly she felt terribly cold.

That’s when she heard the thud of footsteps up the stairs and Ben’s voice calling her. “Annabelle!” Then louder, “Damnation, Annabelle, answer me!” He shoved the door open so hard it bounced off the wall with a thwack that made her jump.

She stood, hunched, her back to him.

He took her by her arms and turned her to face him. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

“What was that all about? Are you all right?”

“I warned you, Ben, I really did.” Her belly began to flutter as she fought to keep from crying. “I’m so sorry.” She gazed up into his face. “Don’t look at me like that. I really am sorry.”

In an instant he looked merely stunned and confused. “It’s okay. Come on back.”

“No!” She wrenched away from him and hugged her body as though she was shivering.

She glanced up to see Ben’s face over her shoulder as he squared his shoulders and set his jaw. She had a terrible desire to giggle. She’d seen him with that kind of look in high school, when the football team was down twenty points and it was up to Ben Jackson to save the day.

“Annabelle,” he said in a tone he must use to redress recalcitrant witnesses. “You’ve seen plenty of drunks before, and everybody spills the occasional glass of wine. It’s no big deal. Gene is devastated. He keeps staring around and asking what he said to upset you.”

“Oh, poor Gene. It’s not his fault.”

He held out his hand. “Please come back with me and tell him that. You’d relieve his mind.”

“No! I couldn’t.”

“Listen,” he said reasonably, as though he were trying to persuade a frightened puppy out from under a chair, “these people are my friends. They want to be your friends. Come back, and I promise you nobody will make an issue of it. Say you got a cramp in your leg, or the salmon mousse disagreed with you. They’ll be all over you with sympathy.”

“But it wasn’t that, Ben.”

“Then what was it?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said in a very small voice. “Nobody would.”

“Try me.”

She shook her head.

“For Pete’s sake, Annabelle.”

That was too much. “I have just embarrassed the heck out of myself in front of a bunch of people I barely know, plus my employer, and I’m not going to go back and make another fool of myself.”

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off and stepped close to him. “And another thing. Didn’t it occur to you to mention to me in passing that this was a birthday party for your mother?”

“Huh?”

“Well, didn’t it?”

“I didn’t think it was a big deal. Not like we were giving presents. It’s just another Thursday.”

“It is not. It is a birthday party, and there I am singing ‘Happy Birthday’ with a stupid grin on my face and trying to act as though I knew all along, and then that drunken buffoon spilled all that red wine, and…” At the memory of the wine on the lace tablecloth, her eyes closed, and she swayed.

“Annabelle?” She felt Ben’s hands pulling her against his chest, his strong arms encircling her, holding her close against him. “Belle?”

She could feel the dry heaves as she gulped convulsively. No tears. There were never any tears, just this gulping and hiccuping while her throat and eyes burned. Other people cried. What was so wrong with her that she couldn’t? Was that another symptom that she was a monster?

He put his fingers under her chin and tilted her face up. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to quell the shivers in her stomach.

“God, you are so beautiful,” he whispered.

She felt his lips against hers, gentle, warm, moving back and forth across her lips, his tongue barely touching, teasing, tasting. She wanted to resist, to tell him this wasn’t the time or place, but the cascade of warmth within her wouldn’t allow her to do that. Instead, her own lips parted and her tongue darted out to meet his, to intermingle, to taste the remains of sorbet, the hint of sweetness on his lips.

His hands slid down her back and below her waist, holding her against him. His whole body felt rock-solid, so wonderfully, comfortingly male. Yet his erection wasn’t comforting at all, but disturbing, because she felt the heat in her own loins answering as she moved against him in a slow rhythm that she couldn’t seem to control.

No. It was up to her to control it, not to fall over backward at his touch, or to let herself feel all the conflicting emotions he evoked. She sucked in her breath and pulled back from him, her eyes wide. “Go away, Ben, please, right now.”

He pulled her into his arms again. “I don’t want to,” he whispered into her hair.

“You’ve got to go back to your party.” She slapped his hand away. “Stop that. You go tell them I succumbed to the vapors or something.”

“Come with me.”

“Ben!” This time she used enough force to overbalance him so that he had to step back a couple of paces. “Read my lips. I cannot, I will not go back over to that house tonight. I’ll write everybody notes tomorrow, including the caterers if that’s what you want…”

He sat on the sofa and took her hands. “It’s not what I want. It’s what you need. If you don’t come back now, the next time it’ll be harder to crawl out of that shell. How can you ever hope to feel at ease in social situations…”

“Who said I have to?”

“I do, dammit.”

She started to smart off back at him, then stopped, tilted her head and looked at him quizzically. “What do you have to do with it?”

Amazingly, he blushed and stammered, “Because I—I want what’s best for you.”

“And the reason for that would be…?”

“That wasn’t exactly a friendly kiss we just exchanged. My ears are ringing.”

“Even in the South you no longer have to marry me because you kissed me, Ben.”

“What if I want to?”

This time she laughed. “Right. Like I’d be the perfect district attorney’s wife.” She walked to the corner and picked up her shoes. “Look, Ben, I’m tired, and I’m feeling like a nitwit. I’m not up to facing those people tonight. Please just make my apologies to your mother and her guests.”

“You won’t change your mind? Or even tell me what went on?”

“Nope.”

His shoulders sagged. “Fine. I can’t pick you up and carry you over there. Well, I could, but you’d probably kick and scream or something equally unattractive.”

“You got that right.”

He straightened. “However, Miss Annabelle, this is far from over. I intend to find out what’s causing this. And when I do, you and I are going to fix it.”

He turned on his heel and made what he probably considered a dignified exit.

As he reached the top step, she applauded slowly.

He paused, then rocketed down and slammed the door at the foot of the stairs behind him.

Annabelle held her pose until she heard him running across the backyard, then she sank into the club chair.

Two hallucinations in one day. Some kind of record. She probably ought to get a CAT scan or an EEG or something. She might have an aneurysm about to pop or a brain tumor.

Maybe Ben was at the bottom of it. She’d been in Memphis for almost a month now without anything worse than bad dreams. Then suddenly Ben Jackson drops out of a tree, and the craziness starts. Was it her hormones?

Was her body finally betraying her for all the years of militant asexuality?

She didn’t know what was going on, but something was definitely out of whack.




CHAPTER FIVE


THE GUESTS WERE STANDING at the front door air kissing and saying their goodbyes when Ben walked back into his mother’s dining room.

She turned a concerned face to him. “Is Annabelle all right?”

He smiled cheerfully. “A touch of migraine. She says she doesn’t get them often, but they come on suddenly. She was afraid she was going to throw up.”

“Poor kid,” the professor said. “I’m sorry about the wine on the tablecloth, Elizabeth. That chime startled me.”

“My birthday clock from Phil,” Elizabeth said. “It’s antique ormolu.”

“Too damn noisy,” Phil said comfortably. “I can disconnect the chime mechanism if you like.”

“Please. It’s beautiful, but a bell ringing every fifteen minutes is a bit much. Do you mind?”

“Not a bit. I’ll do it tonight if you like.”

Elizabeth smiled at Phil. Ben caught the relief in her eyes. His mother would never say anything unpleasant about a gift. But he knew she’d go nuts listening to that thing, and would probably end up hiding it in the broom closet and only bringing it out when Phil was around.

“I’m just glad I didn’t cause her migraine,” said Gene.

“Lucky, you mean,” his wife said.

He seemed to have sobered up quickly.

“Please tell her we’re sorry and look forward to seeing her again,” May added, and squeezed Ben’s arm. “She really is a lovely girl, Ben. So different from the girls you usually squire to these things.”

He kept the smile pasted on his face as he stood at his mother’s shoulder and waved everyone away except Phil Mainwaring, who stood in the doorway with his arm around Elizabeth’s waist.

“Well,” Phil said, giving Ben a lift of the eyebrow. “Time for another cup of coffee?”

Ben shook his head. “I’ll get out of the way and leave you two kids alone. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Elizabeth laughed. “We wouldn’t dream of doing half the things you do, would we, Phil?”

“We would if you’d let me.”

“And besides,” she said, ignoring Phil’s comment, “I want to know what really went on tonight with Annabelle.” She slipped out of Phil’s grasp. “Sit down for a minute. I feel responsible for Annabelle. If she’s in any trouble I want to know about it.”

“No trouble that I’m aware of,” Ben said as he followed his mother and Phil into the living room, where they sat down. He stretched his legs in front of him and slouched on the back of his neck.

“You look awfully grumpy,” said his mother. “Surely she didn’t dump you quite that soon.”

“She didn’t dump me because she hadn’t taken me,” Ben said. “Frankly, I don’t know what went on tonight either, except that she warned me she’s not at ease with people. At school she was an outsider—far outside. In high school there’s always somebody who’s considered weird, who bears the brunt of the jokes and the snickers and the innuendo. She was that somebody.”

“I certainly hope you didn’t join in,” Elizabeth said.

Ben shook his head. “No, but I didn’t do much to interfere either. Hell, Mom, she was four years younger. In high school that’s practically a generation. I mean, we grew up as neighbors, but we weren’t ever close. She’s much nearer Steve’s age.”

“And your brother was off at military school,” Elizabeth said with a touch of sadness. “He’s never really been home since the eighth grade.”

“You did what you had to do. Don’t blame yourself.”

“Maybe if I’d been a better mother…”

“Since your younger son has turned from a blossoming juvenile delinquent into a model citizen, you apparently did the right thing,” Phil added. “Actually, Ben, it’s not surprising that Annabelle is a bit dysfunctional, growing up as she did in that mausoleum with Mrs. Langley trying to convince her she was a bad seed. Maybe she should have stayed in New York.”

“No, she shouldn’t have!” Ben said with such vehemence that both the others stared at him. He stammered, “I—I mean, she’s got to face this town if she’s going to move from dysfunctional to functional.”

“She functions perfectly well when she’s working,” Elizabeth said.

“She needs to be at ease with people, learn to handle sticky social situations, entertain graciously…”

“Oh my God,” Elizabeth said, and sank back against the cushion of the peach sofa as though she’d been slugged. “Not Annabelle? Ben, I know what I said, but I never dreamed it would be Annabelle’s name on that arrow.”





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